Below the Radar: Our new web columnist meets the editor...

He’s a local boy so I expect some of you reading this will have been at school with him (like my checkout lady at Tesco) be related to him, or at very least know who he is. 
Not me. I haven’t lived in the area long enough to know much of who or what matters, so I’m enjoying finding out.

I had never been inside a newspaper’s offices before, so I had no idea what to expect, but the best thing about waiting for Jason was the unexpected bonus ball of old-school copies of the paper on the shelves. 1967 as you ask.

Some features were familiar, and I bet you would recognise the weddings, sports results, and news from the villages.

One inside page featured a large blurry photo of a bra on a roadside verge. Innocent times. Hard to imagine that such a thing would raise a titter today (see what I did? Too obvious?) but back then it was the most amusing thing that had happened around town all week. Commentators were vying with each other, trying to imagine the reasons it was there. Should have asked a woman.

Anyway, talking to Jason was fun - he was interested and interesting and despite his heavy workload, ready to listen and talk.

The upshot of our meeting is that I’m going to be adding to the richness of this website by countering the blokey bias (did I really say that to the editor of a paper?) with my take on whatever’s in the news or on my mind. It won’t be bras on verges. Or it might be, depending on your reactions to my column.

On my way out, he offered me a copy of this week’s paper. ‘Well’ I said, ‘I’ll take it. We all need to clean our shoes* on something.’ If anything I write ever gets published at least I’ll know he has a sense of humour.

* ‘shoes’ - what people used to wear in the years before babies were born wearing trainers.

- The editor in question wants your feedback on Susan’s column! Tell him what you think via email

Next time: I’ve read a lot of ‘Frisky Literature’...